


Cracks

by seekingsquake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bruce Banner Needs a Hug, Bruce Feels, Bruce can have friends, Bruce learns that maybe it's okay to trust the team, Bruce learns to communicate with the team, Bruce on the run, Gen, Gift Fic, I don't know if it's up to my usual standards but I'm really sick and trying to meet a deadline, I'm so sorry, and he gets one this time, because I don't like to follow the rules, completely disregards MCU phase 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-13
Updated: 2014-10-13
Packaged: 2018-02-21 00:05:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2448029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce has never been able to take a breather. The team reminds him that he's not on the run anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cracks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Werevampiwolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Werevampiwolf/gifts).



> I do not own Bruce Banner, Hulk, or the Avengers. I'm not affiliated with Marvel in any way.   
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]
> 
> This is a gift for my friend Werevampiwolf in honour of Thanksgiving, because in Canada we eat a lot of turkey while everyone else gears up for Halloween.
> 
> *I don't have a beta and have been ill, so please point out any mistakes in the piece so that I can fix them.

_September 2006_

Bruce opens his eyes to a grey-blue sky and immense pain. He tries to sit up, tries to roll onto his side to hoist himself out of the dirt, but is rendered immobile by the feeling that he’s been ripped to shreds and then steamrolled back together. When the wave of pain induced nausea passes he tries once again to rise from the earth, and this time he manages.

He’s on the side of the interstate, propping himself up against the “Welcome to Wisconsin” highway sign. He has no clothes on his body, no wallet, no cell phone, and no memory of how he got here.

He was in the lab, strapped down tight to the procedural table. He had winked at Betty through the observation window, and she’d given him a thumbs up in response. They’d injected him with the serum. He remembers severe pain, and screaming, and then... nothing.

And now here he was.

Wisconsin.

He feels something akin to panic, but he pushes it aside. He can’t let himself freak out until he figures out what happened, and he won’t be able to figure out what happened until he gets home. There is a small farmhouse across the highway, asphalt and a stretch of lawn the only things separating him from it. Bruce can see a clothesline stretched out parallel to the side of the little building, and he wonders if the people who live there will let him use their phone. He’s not sure what _he’d_ do if a naked stranger suddenly appeared on his doorstep.

He staggers to his feet and stumbles across the pavement. When he knocks on the farmhouse door there is no answer. There are no lights on inside. He wonders distantly what time it is, and then staggers around the side of the house. He pulls down a pair of slacks and a white button down from the clothesline, then dresses himself.

He isn’t proud of stealing those clothes, but he hasn’t got a lot of options.

He hasn’t got anything for shoes, but there’s nothing he can do about that. He’s still feeling pain flooding his whole system, but there’s nothing to be done about that either. He takes a deep breath, calculates how many miles he is from Willowdale, Virginia, converts miles to kilometres just to give his brain something to focus on, and then steels himself.

He begins walking.

 

_January 2007_

Bruce opens his eyes into darkness. He is being heavily jostled and he's trying to push back the feeling of claustrophobia that's building in his chest. He tells himself that he’ll only be bundled up in the trunk of the car for another couple hours, just until Betty can get them out of dodge. He tries to quell the howling in his head. He tries to breathe.

Betty has turned the stereo up to max volume in an attempt to give Bruce something to focus on. She’s playing The Joshua Tree, an album she’d fallen in love with as a teen and had been adamant in sharing with him. They used to play it when they cleaned their apartment, Bono’s voice fighting with the noise of the vacuum while Betty cleaned the bathroom. He wonders if this will be the last time they listen to it together, and it is that thought that makes him want to break even though he’d been pretty good at keeping it together until now. He wishes he could just crawl up to the front seat, squeeze her fingers and tell her that it’ll be alright.

The howling intensifies.

He takes a deep breath.

 

_March 2008_

Bruce opens his eyes to dark clouds and a smattering of rain on his face. Everything hurts and he wants to be sick, but he can hear the helicopters overhead. They’re searching for him. They’ll rip apart the whole damn continent to find him. He can’t move. He’s shaking and it feels like every molecule that makes him has been pulled apart, torn apart, hastily strung back together. He can’t move.

They’re coming for him. He needs to run, but he can’t pull himself up. He’s going to die here if he doesn’t, his face in the dirt and his naked back exposed to whatever horrible thing they’ve concocted to take down the beast. His skin prickles with the knowledge that the longer he lies here the closer they get. He needs to run. He needs to get up.

He can’t. He can’t do it. An anguished sob breaks free from his lips, and he knows it’ll just draw them to him. He needs to get up. He needs to run. He can’t. He can’t.

There’s a deafening howling in the back of his head, a pressure between his eyes so intense he thinks his brain might come pouring out his ears. The beast wants out. The beast wants to smash. He can’t let that happen. No matter what, he can’t let that happen. Not again, not so soon. He needs to get up.

He stands. He thinks it might kill him.

He runs.

 

_June 2008_

Bruce opens his eyes to mud and the buzzing of insects around his head. All his bones are broken. No, he thinks, no, they’re fine. He breathes through the nausea. He listens for the helicopters. He can’t hear anything, can’t sense anything, but the beast is thrashing inside him. Stand up, he orders himself. Shut up, he orders the other thing. The beast pushes back, and the two of them fight for what feels like an eternity but is really only a moment. It quiets.

It’s not often Bruce wins. Today is a treat.

Stand up, he tells himself again. Stand up. You’re okay. Your bones are fine.

He stands, and he wants to scream because it feels like he’s standing on shattered feet. His chest feels too wide and too tight all at once, and God, it hurts to breathe. He wants to scream and cry and lay himself out. It’s too much. Every single fucking time, it’s too much. I can’t do this, he thinks.

You have to, he tells himself.

He walks.

_September 2008_

Bruce opens his eyes to the knowledge that it’s been two years. His whole body feels like it’s been run over by a train. Happy anniversary, he thinks, and then vomits. He wants to roll over so that the vomit has somewhere to go, but his body is seized in cramps brought on by the pain that should be familiar by now but isn’t. He could die here, choking on his own sickness like some junkie in an alley. He thinks that might be fitting, since that’s what the people in this village think he is, anyway.

The other thing howls so loudly, so suddenly that it startles Bruce up and over. He falls on to his side and pukes over the side of the bed, then glares at the mess on the floor.

Are you going to beat me up on this day every year? he asks.

The other thing grumbles and stirs. He’s already smashed today, he’s tired.

Bruce smirks something dark and bitter, but then groans as the muscles in his legs twitch and spasm. He settles himself back in bed when the other guy growls. Okay, he says, okay, I get it.

Bruce doesn’t sleep. But he tries.

_2009_

Bruce opens his eyes to a clear night sky. He hears helicopters. He wants to rip out his brain so that it can’t send pain signals to the rest of his body anymore. Instead, he gets up.

He runs.

Bruce opens his eyes and the sun almost blinds him. He knows they’re close. He grits his teeth.

He runs.

Bruce opens his eyes and sees only a thick jungle canopy. All the leaves blend together, becoming a vast green sky. They’re so close, he can almost taste the metal of their weapons. He wonders why the other guy doesn’t take them farther away from danger.

He runs.

Bruce opens his eyes but everything’s blurry. The other guy is quiet in his head and it’s so scary because that never happens. It hasn’t been quiet in there since the Incident. There are voices, and Bruce swings his head, and he sees military dress and lab coats and equipment. His vision blurs out. Pain crashes into him so sudden and intense, so much like it did the very first time it happened, but he isn’t changing and the other guy is quiet. Bruce, though, can’t be quiet.

He screams. Enough for the both of them.

Bruce opens his eyes. The other guy opens his eyes. He smashes. They run.

Bruce opens his eyes. He runs.

Bruce opens his eyes. He runs.

Bruce opens his eyes. He runs.

Bruce opens his eyes.

He runs.

He keeps running.

_December 2010_

Bruce opens his eyes and closes them again immediately. He’s in so much pain he could die. It’s my birthday, he says.

The Other guy rumbles.

You could at least congratulate me for making it this far.

The Other guy howls, thrashes, pushes at the spot between his eyes that makes him want to scalp himself. He howls back, grabs the gun from under his pillow. See this? he asks. If you don’t behave, I swear to God, I will end this.

The Other guy pushes harder, and fuck it if that’s not a dare.

He puts the gun in his mouth and closes his eyes. Breathes deep. Breathes. Pulls the trigger.

The Other guy opens his eyes. Head hurt. Smash.

Run.

_June 2011_

Bruce opens his eyes. His whole body hurts, and he wonders if he’ll ever get used to the sort of pain that comes with the transformation. It’s been years and it still renders him hopelessly uncomfortable every time. He wonders if it matters. He cards through the flashes of memory he gets from the Other Guy and he calculates how far they’ve run. He says, let’s rest here for the time being. I think you’ll like India’s climate.

He wanders into a village and tells the Other Guy to rest, to be quiet. He hopes that they can get along long enough to stay here. They’re both so tired. They can’t keep running. Well, maybe the Other Guy could. But Bruce can’t keep up anymore.

This is it, he tells them both. Can you do that for me?

The Other Guy closes his eyes.

Bruce breathes

✧

Bruce opens his eyes to the feeling of being surrounded. His first thought is _we’ve been taken hostage by aliens that flew in from an interdimensional space portal on giant metal slugs_. It is a thought that both confuses him and doesn’t last long, because he is hauled up from his sprawled position on the floor by hands that are decidedly human. Hands that are apparently trying to dress him.

He scrambles away, thrashes and claws at whatever he makes contact with, ignoring the pain his body is screaming with. The Other Guy must have taken quite the beating. He knows he must look like some sort of trapped animal, knows it because the last time he was caught that's what Talbot had said to Ross before Bruce had lost consciousness. _Like a cornered bitch_ had been the exact words, but he tries not to think about that now.

"You're freaking him out," he hears someone say before his brain can kick in and tell him where he is. "Let him dress himself Stark, jeez, just give him the pants and take your hands off him."

Stark. Aliens. New York. Right. His memories are starting to line themselves up and make some sense now. Well, as much sense as anything can make when it’s aliens and gods and superheros seen in snippets through a green lens. He still doesn’t know exactly where he is when he’s hit in the face with a pair of pants.

“As much as I do love the muscly thighs and vast expanse of chest hair,” Stark drawls, a gleam in his eye and a smirk on his face, “NYPD might have to take you in for indecent exposure if you don’t cover up before we go for shawarma.”

“Shawarma?” Bruce’s voice is gruff, his vocal chords still trying to adjust to belonging to him and not the Other Guy.

“Yeah. That’s what I want to eat to celebrate our victory, and since I’m the only one that saved New York from a nuke, I don’t really care about what the rest of you have to say about it.” There’s nonchalance just oozing off of Stark, and Bruce figures that it’s an act. Hopes it’s an act. He tries to remember something a little more concrete than _Hulk save metal man_ but can’t come up with anything.

Tonight, he says firmly to the Other Guy, you and I are going to talk about what happened. “That,” Bruce says to Stark as he slowly pulls the provided t-shirt over his head, “seems fair enough.”

It is over shawarma that everybody else’s cracks begin to show. Captain Rogers, who had given everyone firm claps on the back and walked with a straight spine and sense of purpose, has slumped down in his chair, not eaten any of his food, and convinced Bruce that he is actually asleep with his eyes open. Agents Romanoff and Barton suddenly became attached at the hip, pulling their chairs closer together so that they could share. Thor- Prince Thor?- chews meticulously and mechanically, continuously glancing around the room as if waiting for a threat that he would be too tired to fight to pop out from underneath one of the other tables. Stark’s cracks are the worst though. His casual attitude and quick witted quips slide off him as if bled out from an invisible wound, leaving him silent and bare to the rest of them. His eyes are wide and vacant, and it seems like it might be physically impossible for him to look at anyone else. In this moment, nobody is who they presented themselves to be, but it is the most uncomfortable on Stark.

Bruce shovels food into his mouth and doesn’t say a word. Couldn’t, even if he wanted to. He sees everyone else’s cracks, sees beyond the breaks and right into the light of their personalities, and withdraws. He cannot let these people see into him through his cracks. He cannot open his mouth. It’s not too bad though, not too different, because Bruce has kept his battle weary body from cracking, under the weight of pressure or relief, for years. He has never had the time nor opportunity to let himself show weakness after a transformation, has always had to hit the ground running. This moment, where this group of people crack and sew themselves back together around him, is a rare moment of peace for Bruce. Peace, because he has pants on his legs and a shirt on his back, food in front of him, and at least a few more hours before he has to be on the move again.

He almost feels guilty. He forces himself not to.

It is after shawarma that Bruce unknowingly lets his cracks show.

Though Bruce has definitely had practise in constant motion, in not dwelling on the close calls, near misses, or almosts, Bruce has always been alone. He does not know how to pause or slow down or let weariness overcome him, but he also does not know how to mask the pain on his face. He has never seen the grimace that his lips curl into or the deep furrow of his brow, the harsh set to his jaw as he grinds his teeth to keep the groans silent. He has never seen the stiff line of his shoulders or the careful and deliberate shifting of his weight, and how it makes him look like he’s trudging through deep snow. He is not used to people watching him as he stumbles onward without complaint. These are some of his cracks. He can’t see them enough to cover them. Most of the others are still too scrambled to see beyond their own jagged edges and bloody gashes.

Agent Barton sees enough for all of them.

✧

Their little group of heros is only disbanded for a handful of months before SHIELD calls them back together. The threat is not nearly as catastrophic as a full scale alien invasion, but it is enough to warrant the use of a big green menace.

“I didn’t sign on for this,” Bruce says blandly as he’s led down a long hallway on the helicarrier. “You said I was in the wind after the Chitauri.”

“Yes, well, we can discuss the terms of your involvement after everything’s finished with,” Fury states, walking with all the boot clipping authority that makes Bruce’s skin shift over his flesh.

When they enter the meeting room, everyone has already been assembled. “Ya know,” Stark is saying, pacing around the room like it’d kill him to sit still, “I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m not a part of this little,” he pauses, waves his hands around, searches for the right word, “band of brothers, or whatever. I’m just a _consultant_. Doctor Banner!” Everyone swivels their attention to focus on Bruce as Stark continues, “I didn’t know they were calling you in!”

“More like dragging me in,” Bruce mutters, his lips quirked into a wry grin of greeting, his hands fumbling around with his glasses.

Then they’re all dropped at the site of the battle, and Bruce tells the Other Guy, just do what they ask you, and please be careful. He closes his eyes and is gone.

✧

Bruce opens his eyes to the face of Iron Man hovering over him. Stark and Rogers are arguing, both trying to talk to him at the same time, but his head is pounding and he feels ill so he just blocks them both out. He doesn’t groan even though he wants to. He doesn’t vomit even though it’s a near thing. He pulls himself up from the deep crater that the Other Guy must have made, and he sways and stumbles when he finally gets to his feet. He lists to the left enough that he’s afraid he’ll fall right back over, but before he can even try to correct his balance Rogers has his gloved hands on Bruce’s shoulder and hip, holding him up.

“Are you alright, Doctor Banner?”

Bruce nods and goes to speak, but his voice has been replaced with a scratchy and painful sort of cough. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah, I’m okay Captain, thank you.” He disentangles himself from Rogers and heads to the jet SHIELD had dropped them in, his walk changing from an uncertain, almost drunken fumbling to a light jog in only a couple of steps.

Rogers watches with a firm frown etched into his perfect face. Stark is beside him, his helmet now in his hands, a furrow in his brow. “Did that seem weird to you?” Stark’s tone is casual but his eyes are sharp, and Rogers knows that the other man sees something that he himself is trying to see, but missing.

“Sort of. But I don’t know why.”

✧

After a handful of more missions, the team gives up on the idea of splitting up. Stark has moved them all into Stark Tower, and they are all now in that weird place in the relationship with each other where no one’s sure if they’re still using last names to address each other or not. Stark seems to avoid this problem by giving everyone nicknames, Thor has taken to calling everyone ‘my friend!’, and Barton doesn’t really talk to anyone other than Romanoff. It all leaves Bruce struggling through every conversation with pretty much anyone, so he spends most of his time in the lab that Stark has set aside for him.

It is there, in that hi-tech, state of the art lab that was designed specifically with him in mind, that he loses control of the Other Guy for the first time since the helicarrier about a year ago.

Bruce is still uncomfortable living in the tower. He was the last to move in, and has only been there for a couple of months. He hasn’t made any close bonds with the others, he’s always looking over his shoulder, constantly surrounded by Starktech that has functions that Bruce couldn’t guess. He feels watched by JARVIS, by Stark, by SHIELD. He’s been on edge since he got there, too wound up to eat or sleep properly, so focused on keeping the Other Guy quiet.

The others are aware of this, and for the most part they give him his space. But Stark is naturally mischievous, Thor is always up for a good time and willing to try something new, and Barton has been starting to display a tendency for pranks and practical jokes that is, frankly, worrying. Together the three of them create havoc wherever they go, and often lose sight of the big picture in the haze of fun.

The big picture being, this time, the fact that they’ve taken their paintball war into the lab of an over tired, mistrustful, high strung Bruce Banner.

Bruce doesn’t know what’s happened. One moment he was going over his calculations with tired eyes, and the next he was hit in the back by something unidentifiable. It stings, and he reaches back to feel at the spot of impact, and his fingers come away red.

“Oh shit,” he hears, and then someone is trying to talk to him, trying to put their hands on him, but he can’t focus. Oh shit is right, and that’s exactly what he’s thinking as he feels the Other Guy pushing. No, he shouts, scrabbling at his control desperately. Hulk, no. Stop. Stay down. I’ve got this. I’ve got this. But he doesn’t. He closes his eyes, and the Other Guy opens his.

✧

Bruce opens his eyes to fluorescent lights and a camera on some sort of robotic arm looming over him. He remembers being hit, red on his fingers, and before he can help himself panic is crashing his system. Hulk has come and smashed and retreated, realizing that there’s no danger, but he hasn’t passed that realization of safety on to Bruce yet. Bruce, dumped into the wreckage of a lab with no memories other than that of a perceived wound, has not reacted to this transformation the way the team has seen him react to the others.

Bruce does not stand. He does not clear his throat and tell a dry joke about nudity. He does not walk it off after a slight stumble or two. Bruce lays on the lab floor. He trembles and shakes and shivers, and it looks like he might just shiver right out of his skin.

The team is in the room, decked out in their battle gear and all a little battered. After all the lab equipment had been pulled from the walls and smashed, it was Barton that had calmed Hulk down. He had said, “Hulk, Buddy, do you remember us?”

Hulk had roared and raged and tossed something at him.

“Hulk, nobody’s gonna hurt you or Banner,” Barton kept talking, trying to keep his voice calm but loud enough to be heard. “Nobody’s gonna experiment on you.”

Everyone had reeled. They’d all read Bruce’s file, all known that the military had caught Bruce years ago and literally pulled him inside out. None had made the connection between that time and the fact that all Hulk would be coherent enough to recognize here was lab equipment.

“Nobody’s gonna experiment on you.” It had calmed Hulk enough to get him to stop and look around. He saw metal man, annoying hammer, star man, little bird, and spider lady. He growled, but stopped his smashing. He sat in the middle of the room, glared at them all, and snorted. Metal man pulled off his metal head and looked at Hulk with his squishy one. He said, “We’re your friends, Buddy. You’re safe here, okay?” And Hulk was mad. They could see that he was mad, but they could also see that he trusted them. He closed his eyes and shrunk down, leaving Banner in his place.

But the trust Hulk had given them had been earned in battles that Bruce didn’t have concrete memories of, had been forged when he carried little bird and spider lady on his shoulders, when he took a missile in the back that had been meant for metal man or annoying hammer. Bruce did not feel that trust of his team, didn’t know that the Other Guy would feel safe enough to let Bruce out without any explanation. Hulk retreated back inside and became quiet, just watching.

Bruce didn’t understand. He could only hear the quiet in his head, could only see the fluorescent lights, could only remember being shot in the back and grabbed at. He stared up at the ceiling and all he could think was _Ross is going to kill me this time_ and he cracked.

The scream caught everyone off guard. They had been expecting Bruce to do what he usually did and sit up, look around, maybe ask what happened. But he screamed, and then he sobbed, and he rolled onto his front and curled in on himself and he was talking, babbling, but nobody could make out what he was saying except Rogers.

And Rogers felt sick with sadness at what he was hearing. He didn’t know Bruce very well, none of them did, but he liked him anyway. Bruce was smart, but didn’t lord it over everyone else like Stark did. He was kind in a quiet sort of way, and always thoughtful of the rest of the team. He always made the first pot of coffee in the morning, even though he never drank any. And to hear Bruce beg, _beg_ to please not be hurt, please be left alone, please I’ll do anything just please... It made him shudder. He didn’t feel much like Captain America then. He felt like a very lost, very sad, very little Steve. Steve darted to where Bruce was, got down on the floor and pulled the small scientist into his arms and held him against his chest. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Bruce.”

It was the first time someone on the team had addressed him by his first name, and it was being called Bruce that brought him back. Ross, Talbot, none of the military personnel would ever call him Bruce, would only call him Banner if they were feeling merciful. “St-St-Steve?” he choked out between a sob. “Steve?”

Steve held him tighter and rocked gently, as if trying to put a baby to sleep. “I’ve got you, Bruce. You’re okay. You’re okay.” He held Bruce’s face pressed against the side of his neck, held Bruce close to his heart to try to give him something to focus on. “Lets get you upstairs, hm? Can you stand?”

Bruce could barely breathe. He didn’t want to think about standing, or walking, or moving. But he couldn’t let Rogers- _Steve_ -carry him to the elevator, to wherever it was that he wanted to take him. So he squirmed out from Steve’s arms, crawled across the floor a little before pushing himself to his feet. He was too emotionally unbalanced, too cracked open, to be thinking about anything other than his current task, trying to stand up, so the moan that escaped him startled him as well as everyone else. His head jerked and he looked up with wide, confused eyes, and then his legs buckled underneath him.

Natasha, with the fastest reflexes out of all of them, caught him before he could completely hit the ground, hauling him up by the arm and draping him over her shoulder. “You’re in pain,” she said to him calmly. It maybe should have been a question, but it wasn’t.

“N-no,” Bruce breathes as he tries not to cling to her. “No, I’m okay.”

“You don’t need to lie to us, Doctor.” Her voice is almost stoic, but her eyes are soft. “You’re in pain. You’re always in pain after, aren’t you?”

What’s going on, Bruce thinks, and when the Other Guy rumbles in response Bruce shudders. What are you trying to tell me? Hulk? Hulk?

“Friend Bruce?” Bruce is jolted back to himself when Thor speaks to him, gently taking him from Natasha and enveloping him in strong arms. “Would you mind terribly if I carried you from this place to somewhere more comfortable? I do not wish to see you in anymore discomfort, and I am quite distressed by the fact that I was not made aware of the physical pain that you are left with after our green friend departs. Similarly, I am experiencing a strong need to comfort you after such a display of emotional turmoil. If I may?”

Bruce wants to pull away and just run up all the flights of stairs that will take him from the lab up to his quarters just to prove that he can, but Hulk grumbles and Bruce just nods, lets Thor pick him up and carry him to the elevator. He is only distantly aware of everyone else climbing in with them. He doesn’t really notice that they get out on the common floor instead of his own, and isn’t really present with them until he is curled up on the couch and cuddled up beside Tony, sans Iron Man suit.

“Hey. Um. Look. I’m sorry that I shot a paintball in your lab, and I’m sorry that it hit you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t think to get Hulk out of the lab before you turned back. I’ll have all your equipment replaced ASAP and JARVIS saved all the data that he could and I’ll help you recreate everything else. I know you haven’t used very much of your space on the servers so...”

Bruce just shakes his head and glances around. Everyone is scattered around the room, sitting and looking at him like they’ve never seen him before. He feels weak and stupid and like he’s lied to all these people. They expect him to stand up and pull himself from the ditches he puts himself in. They expect him to be quiet and calm and in control of himself. They expect all of that from him, all the time, because that’s what he’s convinced them he is, and he’s lied to them. He’s let them down. But he’s not strong enough to be that person all the time, and it’s been years since he’s been so scared.

Tony sort of nudges him, and Bruce looks up. “Can I ask you something? I mean, I guess maybe the Spy Twins already have it figured out, but. Why didn’t you tell anyone that the transformations hurt?”

There isn’t anything to say for a long time. The rest of the team all just look at him, waiting, and Steve and Thor both look so guilty. Bruce shrugs. “I didn’t think it mattered.” It was just a mumble, something half intended to be inaudible, but Tony hears him anyway and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Why the fuck would it not matter?”

“Because it never mattered before. It hurts. Big deal. I still have to get up and go. It didn’t ever matter. It couldn’t matter. And you aren’t going to stop needing the Other Guy just because it's uncomfortable. You already wait ‘til the last minute to call him out. There’s nothing else you can do.” And Bruce doesn’t know why all of a sudden he feels a little better, but he does. He lets himself sink in closer to Tony, and he can feel Hulk sort of purring in the back of his mind.

“How long does the pain linger?” Steve asks, curious and guilty all at once.

It’s Clint that answers with, “A couple days,” and Natasha that explains, “That’s why he hides away from everyone for a few days after a battle. Easier to hide it from us that way.”

Thor makes an odd noise in the back of this throat, his face all twisted. Steve turns his eyes up to the ceiling and frown lines crease the skin around his mouth. Tony's arm tightens around him. "What else does it do to you?"

Bruce thinks for a minute before closing his eyes and letting his head fall back against the couch. "It just... It hurts. A lot. More than I'm comfortable admitting. And it makes me want to sleep for a good two or three days. And it makes me hungry."

"How do you deal with that?" It's only Steve asking questions, and he seems more concerned with every one.

"I don't know. I... don't? I just. Go about my day. Try to keep my sleep schedule and meal patterns the same. I just... Ignore it?"

"Hey," Tony's voice is strained and Bruce can't figure out why. "Can I get you something? Tea or some shit? A sandwich? A blanket? Something?"

Steve silences him with a stern look and then turns to Bruce. "Do you like recovering like that, and do you like recovering alone?"

"...What?..."

Steve's voice is steady and patient as he asks again, "Do you like recovering like that, and do you like recovering alone? Because if that's something that helps you, something that you like doing and that make you feel better, then we're all going to leave it alone and let you do your thing. But I don't like the idea of you locking yourself on your floor so that we don't see you in pain, not letting yourself get enough sleep, and not eating enough. If you genuinely feel better, that's fine. But I don't like the idea of leaving you alone like that."

And Bruce doesn't know why, but there's the sting of tears in his eyes and Hulk's purring has gotten louder. "I... That's just always what I've done. What I've had to do. I don't want to. To inconvenience anyone. It's okay. It's. I'm okay. The way things are. I'm okay."

But Tony pulls him ever closer, and Natasha goes into the kitchen and comes back with a bowl of grapes and some crackers, and JARVIS dims the lights. Clint hesitates for only a moment before getting up from his seat on the floor to sit on Bruce's other side, effectively trapping the scientist between him and Tony. Bruce, a little confused but grateful nonetheless, reaches for the grapes and can't quite bite back a hiss of pain. Tony grabs the bowl off the table and holds it in his lap, pulls a bunch off the stem so that Bruce doesn't have to. 

Bruce tells himself that it's okay, tells himself that he can't cry, won't cry, but finds himself crying anyway. "Please," he whispers, and he isn't even sure who he's talking to at this point, or why, "don't leave me alone."

In the back of his mind Hulk growls, low and content, and closes his eyes.

✧

Bruce opens his eyes to find himself held against a broad chest and wrapped in a blanket. He looks up into Thor's face and blinks. Thor grins at him. "Our friend Hulk fought valiantly today. He is a most glorious warrior. But you must be exhausted, my friend, so please rest. We are almost home."

Bruce blinks again and looks around. They're in the back of a van that has seating like a limo. Natasha is driving, and Clint's in the passenger seat. Steve and Tony are sitting in seats that are across from where Thor is with Bruce. Tony grins and reaches over to ruffle his hair while Steve reaches into a bag and pulls out a granola bar and a bottle of water. He rips open the foil and loosens the cap before passing them over, and Thor tucks them into the blanket by Bruce's face.

"It's okay Buddy," Tony murmurs, his hand still tangled in Bruce's messy curls. "We've got you."

Hulk is quiet. They've got you, he tells himself. They've go you. We're okay.

Bruce closes his eyes.

And he sleeps.


End file.
